Plotting expertly, and writing with complete assurance, Abel (Cold Steel Rain, 2000, etc.) brings the New Orleans of Danny’s...
In New Orleans, cops and crooks have a symbiotic relationship. Snapshot: A cop and a crook share a six-pack and a belly laugh. Snapshot: The same cop arrests the same crook a week later, with no hard feelings. “In New Orleans you didn’t let the day get mixed up with the night” is an article of faith to Danny Chaisson, ADA turned defense attorney, and a man so trusted with complexities that he’s indispensable to big-time real-estate developer Michael Tournier. Tournier’s latest project has hit a snag, he tells Danny—or, more precisely, a forgotten slave burial ground. Forgotten, that is, by the white population of a certain small Louisiana town, but not by their black neighbors. Exacerbating the situation is the ugly incident of a few nights back. Having invaded the cemetery, three white high-school students, stoked by beer, decided to knock down a few headstones, and when old Caryl Jackson tried to stop them, they knocked him down too, with a chunk of granite. Tournier asks Danny to drop in on St. Tammany to make sure it’s generally understood how sympathetic and blameless his company is. Tournier’s deep pockets, after all, are practically an invitation to the Jackson family to sue. Agreeing to scout around, Danny is swiftly enmeshed in an ancient St. Tammany history whose deadly tentacles reach toward some contemporary lives, at least one of which is precious to Danny.
Plotting expertly, and writing with complete assurance, Abel (Cold Steel Rain, 2000, etc.) brings the New Orleans of Danny’s second case vividly alive.Pub Date: May 20, 2002
ISBN: 0-399-14796-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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